after struggles between Greece and Persia, or when the Roman legions encountered the myriads of Mithridates and Tigranes, or as is the case in the Indian campaigns of our own regiments. On the contrary, up to the day of Marathon the Medes and Persians were reputed invincible. They had more than once met Greek troops in Asia Minor, in Cyprus, in Egypt, and had invariably beaten them. Nothing can be stronger than the expressions used by the early Greek writers respecting the terror which the name of the Medes inspired, and the prostration of men's spirits before the apparently resistless career of the Persian arms.[1] It is, therefore, little to be wondered at, that five of the ten Athenian generals shrank from the prospect of fighting a pitched battle against an enemy so superior in numbers, and so formidable in military renown. Their own position on the heights was strong, and offered great advantages to a small defending force against assailing masses. They deemed it mere foolhardiness to descend into the plain to
- ↑ Ἀθηναῖοι πρῶτοι ἀνέσχοντο ἐσθῆτά τε Μηδικὴν ὁρέωντες, καὶ τοὺς ἄνδρας ταύτην ἐσθημένους· τέως δὲ ἦν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι καὶ τὸ οὔνομα τῶν Μήδων φόβος ἀκοῦσαι.—Herodotus, lib. vi. c. 112.
Αἱ δὲ γνῶμαι δεδουλώμεναι ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων ἦσαν· οὕτω πολλὰ καὶ μεγάλα καὶ μάχιμα γένη καταδεουλωμένη ἦν ἡ Περσῶν ἀρχή.—Plato, Menexenus.
